


Her Early Leaf

by Dracoduceus



Series: Nothing Gold [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Assumed Character Death, Background Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Fall of Overwatch, Hanahaki AU, M/M, implied mchanzo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 10:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: “In folklore, cornflowers were worn by young men in love; if the flower faded too quickly, it was taken as a sign that the man's love was not returned.”---Even though Gabriel knew that Jack Morrison hadn’t always been with him, he was hard-pressed to remember a time when he wasn’t there and what life had been like.Perhaps it was a bit dramatic, like something out of the mind-numbing daytime dramas they used to play in The Clinic while they got their shot treatments, but he sometimes thought that his life really began when he met the scrawny young man that was Jack Morrison.





	1. Her Early Leaf

**Author's Note:**

> I had written most of this just before the Retribution event came out and with the new lore introduced, had to back up and make some minor adjustments. 
> 
> With this one in particular, I had wanted to explore a new concept and new point of view in this whole story. This one doesn't revolve around McCree and Hanzo and this will be my first R76 story.

The man that had once been Gabriel Reyes opened his eyes to Dr. O’Deorain’s poisonous smile _and knew_.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Brushing off the residual golden dust of her healing nanites, he sat up. “I don’t,” he pointed out and her smile widened. She watched with her odd eyes as his calloused fingers explored the site of his surgery, running the very tips over the scars that remained. It wasn’t something that ever seemed to heal or go away, even in the age of nanites and biotic fields.

The ultra-religious called it a sign of God’s wrath, the Mark of Cain, and the rejection of God’s holy gift of love.

“But I know things now.”

Dr. O’Deorain hummed, tapping her chin with her nails that looked more like talons. He peered closer at her and realized that she wasn’t _quite_ tapping her chin thoughtfully and the nurses and technicians in the operating theatre scurried in a way that reminded Gabriel of prey beneath the gaze of an owl.

“I have a better understanding of my Empty operatives,” he said instead of what he initially thought and watched the unusually deep lines of tension around her eyes slowly fade.

She nodded and continued cleaning up, removing the electrodes from his body and hers. “That’s good,” she said neutrally. “I have a few brochures for you – of my own creation, as I’ve done this particular surgery many times before – and then I suggest that you get some rest. We will schedule a session tomorrow to go over your new life.”

Gabriel nodded thoughtfully, watching the nurses and technicians scrambling around. There was a gory red mass sealed in a large glass jar. From the way she looked at him, anyone watching was behind him so he signed so that his body blocked his hands, _can I see it?_

Her poisonous smile was back and she traced a long purple talon along the still-tender scar. _Later_ , she signed back. Out loud she purred, “Just imagine what you can do now. Remarkable.”

For a long moment he watched her team cleaning up and thought of spiky blue petals and green-grey stems, of blue eyes and cornsilk hair. He couldn’t feel – wasn’t that the _point_ of the coward’s cut? – but he could _remember_ and he could _want_ and his chest felt hollower for it.

* * *

Even though Gabriel knew that Jack Morrison hadn’t always been with him, he was hard-pressed to remember a time when he wasn’t there and what life had been like.

Perhaps it was a bit dramatic, like something out of the mind-numbing daytime dramas they used to play in The Clinic while they got their shot treatments, but he sometimes thought that his life really began when he met the scrawny young man that was Jack Morrison.

They called him Captain America sometimes, called him Steve Rogers while they mocked him because he was smaller and leaner than anyone else. But he was stronger – his thin build hid muscles honed from a life on a farm and then later from time in the army. Not necessarily in the ways his tormentors were, but he more than pulled his weight – before the SEP he had to pass basic after all, even if he had been in the equivalent of an office position.

Reyes had actually met Morrison on the outdoor track, running laps at 0430, far earlier than officers tended to be awake. He wouldn’t have called it a _friendship_ , but they began running with each other every day at ass-o’clock in the morning; the rest of the time they pretended the other didn’t exist, not unlike affronted cats.

“You signed up for the program,” Morrison said one day out of the blue while they did a cool-down jog.

“That why your head’s in the clouds?” Reyes snipped back. A few times Morrison had sloshed through puddles as if he hadn’t seen them, spraying Reyes with muddy water.

Morrison glanced at him out of the corner of his steel-grey eyes. With exertion his pale skin got red and splotchy and Reyes sometimes teased him that he looked diseased. “You signed up for the program,” he repeated.

“What program?” Reyes lied.

The look Morrison gave him made it clear what he thought about that. “The files came across my desk pending final approval,” he said.

Annoyed, Reyes scowled at the track in front of them. They split smoothly to avoid a puddle from the previous last night’s rains that hadn’t drained correctly. “You ain’t my supervisor,” he growled.

“Logistician,” Morrison corrected. “And those being pulled for the program need to be run by me. You signed up for it.”

Reyes snorted. “What program?”

Next to him, Morrison huffed. “Stop playing dumb, it’s not a good look on you,” he said as they slowed to a brisk walk almost in unison.

After running together for so long they knew each other’s tells and when they needed to slow down. Morrison had a slight limp after running for an extended period of time, even on a soft surface like the rubber outdoor track, but it was virtually invisible in every other case. Reyes had never asked and Morrison had never told him; an unspoken code among soldiers.

“If you already know, why should I answer?” Reyes snapped back as they approached the bleachers that had their towels and water bottles.

Morrison shrugged. “Why?” he asked. “Did you sign up, I mean?”

They stopped and Reyes scowled off into the distance. “Don’t matter why,” he muttered before taking a deep drink of his water bottle.

“It matters to me,” Morrison said with enough sincerity that Reyes turned to look at him in surprise. His grey eyes were earnest, his face almost shy despite the scar that split the corner of his lip. “Why did you sign up? Aside from the whole ‘ _ooh-rah_ ’ thing,” he added with a wry smile.

Suddenly irrationally angry, Reyes spun and stepped forward into Morrison’s face. He had two inches on Morrison and used it, making the officer tip his head back to meet his eyes. “I ain’t gone to no fancy school like you,” he said. “I ain’t got no fancy education or no fast-track shot to bein’ an officer. I’m gonna live and die as nothin’ but a grunt but I may as well make it by my terms.”

That didn’t describe his feelings on _the program_ – not by a long shot – but suddenly overwhelmed, Reyes spun and stalked away, not caring that he left his towel behind.

Later that night he found his scratchy standard-issue workout towel folded neatly on his bunk in the barracks. When announcements were posted for transfers, he was surprised to find that he and Morrison were both being transferred to the same base.

To SEP.

* * *

Things didn’t _really_ get better, but they also didn’t stagnate.

With the shots they were left too sick and too drained to go running every morning but as if by some cosmic chance, of the hundreds of volunteers housed at that particular base they were both in the same test group. They were given tattoos on the inside of their elbow: two numbers separated by a dash to indicate batch group and specimen number.

Morrison had teased him in an attempt to lighten their strained relationship and the nervous pall in the air that his number should have been 96:69. _A palindrome,_ Morrison had said and cringed, peering at Reyes almost nervously, as if afraid that Reyes would bite. _The same forwards and back_ , he hurried to explain.

_Do you think of nothing but sex?_ Reyes had muttered back, too tired to do more than shovel his food into his mouth. His freshly-tattooed arm lay stretched out in front of him and the mark throbbed with each beat of his heart. 37:24.

Biting his lip, Morrison reached out his own tattooed arm and lay it beside Reyes’s. The contrast of their skin – coffee for Reyes and cream for Morrison – was stark, especially so close together and brought out the dusting of freckles dotting Morrison’s arm. The tattoo seemed even darker on his white skin: 37:76.

The tests continued.

To set up a baseline, they spent a week of hard training; then came the injections that left them so weak that they had to be wheeled to and from The Clinic. Eventually they were all given beds and stayed there.

By then there were only eighty-two left of a group of one hundred-fifty.

Hemophilia was a common sign of luck running out and it got to the point that no one was too upset anymore to see red tears and in a few hours, an empty bed.

In order to boost morale and keep them entertained, they set up holo-screens but neglected to give them the remotes. Most of the time mind-numbing telanovelas or Korean dramas were on and they were helpless to escape. Half of them couldn’t speak, too weak to do even that.

_Maybe it's torture training,_ Jack had suggested halfheartedly.

_I would break,_ Gabriel had replied and they pretended that he wasn't excitedly leaning in to watch whenever it came back on.

To pass the time and distract themselves from the steadily increasing number of empty beds around them, Gabriel taught Jack Spanish and Jack taught Gabriel French.

A month later they were among the only ones left of their group and somehow roommates turned into bedmates and neither of them looked back.

Despite many archaic rules and policies still in place, the Army was still eager to keep them and turned a blind eye to their fraternization.

So too did Overwatch when they invited them to join.

Even years later - what felt like decades, centuries after everything they’d been through together - it felt like a dream to wake up beside Jack. “I want to be your forever,” he blurted one morning, a bare handful of seconds before their alarm was about to ring.

Jack’s eyelids fluttered and he smiled without opening them when their alarm shrieked. Leaning over to Gabriel’s side of the bed, he finally opened his eyes when the shrieking stopped and he had caged Gabriel’s head with his bent elbows. His eyes, once as grey as a coming storm had lightened as a side-effect of his treatments in the SEP until they were as blue as the sky.

“Forever sounds nice,” he said and leaned down to kiss him softly. “I think I can do that.”

* * *

Life moved on. They fought and bled together, helped to build a team. Gabriel contributed his strategic mind and combat skills and Jack his organized, logistician mind.

It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the word. Sometimes they stayed up late, sometimes missions kept them apart but they always returned. Sometimes they fought and sometimes they slept in different rooms, unable to stand the sight of the other but in the morning they always made up. Life was short, after all; who knew when these blissful moments would come to a tragic end?

Lately, the things they argued most about were the standard operating procedures for the treatment and removal of Hanahaki and a woman by the name of Moira O’Deorain, lead researcher and surgeon specializing in Hanahaki treatment and removal.

Dr. Moira O’Deorain, who by her own admission wasn’t quite so prideful as to require them to call her by her earned title, had a low voice and her brogue hid how it rasped like sandpaper; like she had chain-smoked for 90 years and had no intention of stopping.

Like she had once had something in her throat that threatened to suffocate her with petals and leaves and pale roots.

It was something that Gabriel had noticed when he recruited her to Blackwatch – of course he had given their SOP – but not something anyone mentioned. _I didn’t take the Coward’s Cut,_ she had told him during her unofficial interview. _I was a fool and now I will pay the price for the rest of my life. I offer the Cut to everyone who comes to me and unless I meant for them to die, no one has been lost beneath my knife_.

Given their… _unique_ procedures, she was a perfect candidate. She was among the most decorated and accomplished scientists that studied Hanahaki, and it was through her assistance that they gained so many more accomplished Empty soldiers.

_They have an annoying way of dying on the table_ , Moira had told him once when he asked about her experience. _The roots cling so well and blend with capillaries and veins so much that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish the two. Even with modern science it’s sometimes a very risky procedure, especially given that the cut must be made into the trachea and esophagus and lungs. Special care needs to be taken when you replace the sternum and the ribs and only through using specialized equipment and biotic fields can these kinds of tissues be regenerated enough for healthy function._

In time she gained a… _reputation_ in the field as cruel and heartless. Her smile held poison, her eyes the cold ruthlessness of an insect; it brought fear to the hearts of those who could still feel it. But despite their fear, they did not (or tried not to) shy away from her. Moira was not the angelic prodigy in Overwatch, but she was certainly accomplished and did her job well.

Moira was not the first to guess the extent of Gabriel and Jack’s relationship, but she _was_ the first to see a problem. She saw the signs in Gabriel far before he himself did and warned him of what was to come. Her voice was almost kind – a feeling she barely remembered – when she spoke to him and that alone was enough to inform Gabriel of the severity of what was about to happen. They spent many hours speaking with each other – hours that a certain someone didn’t notice because he was away playing the picturesque hero that adorned the propaganda posters.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked her one night after far too many drinks.

“Always,” Moira said, her odd eyes going a little hazy. “I learned to live with the pain.”

Gabriel took another long sip of his tequila. He drank it like beer – _could_ , because of all of the drugs that the SEP had pumped him up with, _had to_ because otherwise he wouldn’t be drunk, _did_ because he didn’t want to admit to her that he was afraid; afraid of the knife, of the Cut, of the petals that were clawing its way up his throat.

Of the golden boy who didn’t know; who at some point, unnoticed to the both of them, had fallen out of love with him.

Or perhaps had never really loved Gabriel like he loved Jack.

“And after the Cut?” Gabriel asked.

“I will ensure that you do not hurt,” Moira said after a long pause. Her ginger eyelashes fluttered as she closed her eyes. “I am cruel in many ways, Commander Reyes, but in this I am not.” She placed a long-fingered hand over her chest and neck, which did not have the thick scar of the Empty but seemed to have the faintest shadow – like blue veins beneath her pale skin – of roots and branches.

Gabriel looked away and took another long drink of tequila; Moira opened another bottle for him and wordlessly handed it over when he tossed the empty in the recycling bin with a loud crash of glass. “How long before it manifests?” he asked roughly and they both pretended it was from the liquor.

“That depends on you,” Moira said and her face twisted in an expression that for someone that didn’t know her would seem like a mockery of sympathy. By now Gabriel knew that it was as sincere as she was able to express; that knife-like smile on her lips lacked the venom it usually held. “Not reassuring, I know.”

“No,” Gabriel sighed, peering into the mouth of the bottle as if through that lens he could divine his future. “I know there isn’t a good answer.”

Moira nodded and they tapped the necks of their bottles together – some kind of dark beer for Moira and another fifth of tequila for Gabriel. “Life sucks,” Moira said as a toast.

“And then you die,” Gabriel finished. Moira smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. They both drank deeply.

* * *

 

Gabriel called McCree in and sat him down. It made something ache in his chest to see the mechanical way he moved, the blank look in his eyes. “How goes your training with Amari?” he asked, searching McCree’s face for something he knew would never be there again.

“Well,” McCree said after a moment to think. “Or so she tells me.”

He hesitated. “Can you not judge your own progress?”

“I can,” McCree replied and his dead voice made Gabriel nervous despite himself. From the twitch in McCree’s brown eyes, he had seen it. He made a face that looked only a little awkward. “Would this make you feel better?” he asked, a touch of life coming into his voice. A mockery of the cocky smile he used to wear ticked up the corners of his mouth. He still sat too stiffly in the chair but it was a start.

“You don’t need to if you don’t want to,” Gabriel told him although something in him relaxed.

McCree shrugged, his motions still just a touch too off to pass as sincere. “I don’t feel discomfort,” he said. “But you do. I make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s human nature,” Gabriel said softly. “You lack what I…still have.”

He inwardly cursed his slip and his young protégé regarded him with a similar insect-like coldness to Moira’s. “You’re going to get the Cut,” he said, his voice returning to its flat, even tone. Gabriel liked to think that he was surprised, but that was one of the feelings that McCree was no longer able to feel.

“I’m here to talk about you,” Gabriel said and didn’t shiver beneath McCree’s long, even gaze.

After a long moment McCree hissed out a long sigh and laced his fingers behind his head, relaxing into the chair as if it had been all an act. His mouth curled up into that same roguish, cocky smirk he used to wear. It occurred to Gabriel that the previous act had even more so been that – an act – to hide… _this_.

“Sure thing, boss,” he said with a rumbling chuckle that sounded so real that it made Gabriel’s heart ache for the kid. For all he was a cocky, violent asshole, he genuinely _missed_ the old McCree. “Whatever you say.”

* * *

Jack didn’t question it when Gabriel moved the trash can from his desk – double-lined with plastic bags – next to his bed like Moira suggested. A part of Gabriel wanted him to but another part hoped he didn’t; he was ridiculously disappointed for so many reasons when Jack merely glanced at the trash can and climbed in bed as normal.

They sat reading reports in bed as they always did but now it seemed…emptier. Perfunctory.

Like they sat together more out of habit than for any emotion between them. The thought…saddened Gabriel more than he thought it would. He coughed and found Jack looking at him with a frown. “What?” he asked roughly, trying to hide another cough.

“You better not be sick,” Jack said and went back to his reading.

Gabriel snorted. “I haven’t been sick since the SEP,” he said dismissively, hating himself a little for lying. But he hated himself for a lot of things – what was one more drop in the ocean?

“Still,” Jack said, scrolling through another report. From his vantage point, Gabriel thought it looked like a report of the riots in Ayutthaya. “I don’t want to get sick.”

A dark feeling rose up in his chest and he looked away. If it _was_ a report of the mobs and the fires, he wondered what it said. In his own hand he held a report compiled by his own agents. The Ayutthaya Incident was a feather in the cap of Overwatch, who received all of the credit and half of the information.

_His_ report had all of the information, verified at great risk by his own agents. Null Sector was far from dead the way that Jack seemed to believe. But Null Sector, in many ways, was the least of their problems. McCree and Shimada had found a tenuous connection to another, much larger group, and he had turned them loose – within reason – upon it.

“I’m not sick,” Gabriel said instead and tried not to cough.

Jack scoffed, flipping a page with an annoyed flick of a finger. “Well, the awards ceremony is in a few days,” he said, the crinkle between his eyes deepening. “Why does this information seem incomplete?” he demanded.

“Probably is,” Gabriel muttered.

“No,” Jack said dismissively. “I got four separate reports from the operatives there but there are still large gaps in my intel.” Gabriel snorted, relaxing back into the pillows propped against their headboard. He grunted when he felt Jack elbow him sharply in the side. “Stop it,” Jack told him. “You’re smoking again.”

Gabriel grunted again and wondered if the flowers would be visible as a wraith or if it transmuted with him, a constant and literal thorn in his side – in his throat and lungs. Were the flowers visible now?

“I’m just tired,” Gabriel said. “Work’s been rough lately.”

Next to him, Jack snorted. “Not as rough as mine, I assure you.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes to himself and bit his tongue against responding. Blackwatch’s problems were Blackwatch’s problems – they weren’t for Overwatch to sweep in and save the day.

And the Blues didn’t need to know about the concerning rate of weapons’ failure that is being recorded by their armory. Or the increased rate of dangerous and questionable missions they were being sent on. Gabriel was sure that Jack guessed some of it – Gabriel was away more often now – but to what extent Jack guessed, he didn’t know.

“Does that have to be done right now?” Gabriel asked instead, turning off his own screen and placing it on the bedside table next to him.

Jack hummed distractedly and Gabriel poked him in his side. “Stop it, I’m busy,” he said, pinching the screen to enlarge the letters of the report. For some reason, the captions on pictures always ended up _microscopic_ on those damn reports and Gabriel didn’t envy him. “Don’t you have work to do?” he added rather waspishly.

“I’m being shipped out tomorrow afternoon,” Gabriel said, tilting so that he could rest his head on Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll be away for two weeks – _at least_.”

Grunting, Jack nudged him off. “You smell like your smoke,” he complained. “And I need to get this done by tomorrow night.”

“I’m going to be shipped out tomorrow afternoon,” Gabriel repeated, nudging Jack back.

Sighing, Jack put the holoscreen down and looked at Gabriel, his face somehow both fond and exasperated. It made something in Gabriel’s chest flutter and he fought back a cough. Jack must have seen it because he made a face and pressed a disappointingly chaste kiss to his cheek. “Yuck!” he said and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You taste like sulfur!”

This time it was Gabriel who sighed. “Never mind,” he muttered and rearranged his pillows so he could lie down, half-hoping that Jack would follow suit. “Goodnight,” he murmured into his pillow. “Love you.”

Jack grunted. “Night.”

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Gabriel closed his eyes.

The next morning, Jack’s half of the bed was empty and there was a note on the bedside table: _Early meeting. Be back late. See you tonight_.

Gabriel coughed up his first blue petal – _cornflower_ , the same exact shade of blue as Jack’s eyes – and sighed.

Moira seemed to sense it but was kind enough not to say anything about it right away. They shared understanding glances and Krishnasami, the only other Empty soldier in the plane, frowned. She said nothing though and after a stiff salute, turned and marched back to the cockpit.

As the engines whined and roared as they warmed up, Gabriel stared down the ramp at the empty tarmac, lit by the late afternoon sun. “No Big Blue?” Hill asked almost gently, her voice almost completely drowned out by the roar of the engines.

It didn’t matter that the Blues always seemed to be opposing Blackwatch. It didn’t matter what anyone thought of the naivety of the heroes of Overwatch. Gabriel’s people knew about him and Jack – he’d be disappointed in them if they didn’t, probably have to kick them off the team – but despite their personal feelings, they shared Gabriel’s soft spot for Jack…to an extent.

They called him Big Blue, mostly for his blue eyes that matched his blue coat and blue HUD he always seemed to wear and the big marble statues of him outside of so many official Overwatch recruiting centers. Big Blue: larger than life, the most famous Strike Commander of Overwatch.

“No,” Gabriel said roughly and slapped the switch to close the ramp gates as Krishnasami announced that they had received clearance to take off from the control tower. The ramp hissed as it closed. “Blackwatch never gets a sendoff.”

Hill gently touched her knuckles to his forearm and he started, turning to look at her. She was a cold-blooded killer in many ways and was nearly as emotionless as an Empty soldier in the field; non-violent contact and comfort was very much out of the norm for her. Her face was carefully blank, obviously uncomfortable. “ _You_ send us off,” she said softly. “That’s enough for us.”

She shook her head and strapped in and wouldn’t speak for the rest of the trip. No one commented on it but the rest of the team shot him sympathetic looks – just one as even that was extremely out of character for his teams – and he shook his head to himself.

A few hours in to his flight – and after two stops to pick up more operatives and gear – his comm buzzed with a message from Jack. It was a picture of the scribbled note he left on Jack’s pillow ( _Leaving for a mission. Be back in two weeks, maybe more. Love you, G.R._ ). It was followed by a short, terse message: _why didn’t you tell me?_

Gabriel considered replying as he hung on to a strap by the door. He could hear the ground crews shouting and watched the fuel truck trundle away. Krishnasami had been replaced by another Empty pilot, Jones, who announced their clearance and ETA to takeoff. Shaking his head, Gabriel palmed the ramp closed and walked to his seat.

In the meantime, he received another message: _We are supposed to tell each other these things._

He watched the icon that indicated that Jack was typing and wondered what more he had to say.

_I wanted you to be here for the ceremony._

Gabriel swallowed a harsh, hacking cough and perhaps it was only in his head, but he thought he could feel the petals slipping against his throat. He typed back a simple response before putting his phone away.

_I tried_.

* * *

 

Moira was surprisingly sympathetic.

She gave him muscle relaxants and injections to keep the rough hacking at bay but warned him that they were only a temporary fix – a band-aid over a wound that needed stitches.

McCree and Shimada came back with their reports from their romp around the globe. The cyborg seemed much more interested in chasing blood but McCree watched Gabriel with an intense stare that told him that he was suspicious.

They proposed a new hunt to chase a lead and Gabriel granted it. Shimada ran off to do something while McCree lingered behind. “Go on, ingrate,” Gabriel told him.

“You’re afraid,” McCree said flatly. “You should be; it’s not worth it.”

Without waiting for a response, McCree left and closed the door behind him. Gabriel sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and worried. Inevitably he began coughing and more petals came up. It was gross and probably unsanitary but he washed a handful of the petals of bile and saliva, dried them, and pressed them in a few of the old-fashioned books he kept in his office.

Even alone in his office where there was no one to see him, he didn’t want to admit he was scared.

He had served for _years_ in the military before the SEP and more in Overwatch. He’d bled and suffered; he’d killed and had more than once nearly _been_ killed. He could face down a thousand evils of the human race – weapons and fists and bared teeth and blood and viscera – and yet the mere thought of this… _affliction_ being the one to strike him down terrified him.

It was more than just that, he thought to himself as he very carefully pressed the flowers into the books with shaking hands. They hadn’t shaken like this since the SEP shots in The Clinic, the worst night of his life where his body was wracked with shivers and Jack’s eyes were filling with tears of blood…

Now this time it was his lungs slowly filling with roots and petals from the most fatal kind of love. He was afraid; he was _angry_.

Shoving himself to his feet, he dug around in the cabinet under his desk for the bottle of tequila that McCree and Shimada had bought him as a gag gift – his “emergency stash”. Could he still drink after the Cut?

With a heavy sigh, he locked the door and kicked his feet up on the desk, taking a long sip of the bottle. _First things first_ , Jack used to tell him when he got overwhelmed back in the early days of command. _Make a list then prioritize from that._ He had never told Jack how much he appreciated the help, but he knew that Jack knew it anyway.

Gabriel lifted a finger on the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle. “I have Hanahaki,” he said softly. He lifted another finger. “I need to have it cut out.” Another finger. “I need to tell Jack.” Bringing up a holo-screen, he quickly typed that out in his own personal cipher. He nudged a line under his first point; the cursor blinked accusingly at him.

Growling, he deleted the list and started over.

  1. I have Hanahaki and I don’t know why.



He stopped and took a long drink of the tequila in his hands, thinking hard. _I love you_ , he had remembered saying to Jack the night before he shipped out to this new brand of hell. He had sent it again by text just the other day: _thinking of you. love you. G.R._

Jack had responded with a smiley face and that was it.

Growling, Gabriel took another long sip from the bottle. “Next item,” he muttered to himself.

  1. SOP



He swallowed around the lump in his throat and watched the cursor blink mockingly at him. If anyone in Blackwatch was above standard operating procedure, it was certainly him – _he_ , the rare super soldier, could get away with it.

But at the same time, he knew that many of the higher-ups would sell their own spouses and children and their children’s spouses and children to have an Empty super soldier. They would love it, jump at the chance, and hound him. On the other hand, they wouldn’t want to risk their cash cow, the formidable Commander Reyes.

_Perhaps that wasn’t the right way to phrase that_ , a voice that sounded terribly like McCree before the Cut said in his head. A hand like iron bands squeezed around his heart and he wheezed as if it were a physical thing.

McCree – _Jesse_.

It twisted something inside him to see the kid so…so Empty. He hid it well now after lessons with Ana, well enough that he could pass as something closer to human, but there were moments when Gabriel could see him slip. Most days he wore a perpetual scowl that was easily disguised by the pull of his mouth as it split around whatever he was chewing. It was a clever trick Ana used and Gabriel wondered how much Jesse hated it.

How much he had to hate Gabriel, who had authorized the surgery.

On one hand he saved the ingrate’s life (and he hadn’t realized how much he missed the indignant face that Jesse would make when he called him that until Jesse no longer had much of an expression to give); on the other he cut away the kid’s love for the Shimada heir.

As far as Gabriel knew, only he and Amari knew exactly who Jesse had such dangerous feelings for, who he harbored such a deadly love. Maybe Shimada Genji knew as well, maybe even his damned brother who didn’t love Jesse back.

Gabriel hadn’t even told Jack, except to say that Jesse had Hanahaki that needed to be cut out. Jack hadn’t been able to sit up with him waiting for word after the surgery (he had been in a conference call with the UN) and he hadn’t been able to visit when Jesse was finally awake, two days after being taken in (Jesse had been badly injured following the mission that made him realize that his lingering cough had indeed been Hanahaki and Jack had been required to attend a parade and a gala held in honor of Overwatch).

Shaking his head to dispel such poisonous thoughts, Gabriel took a deep drink from his tequila, draining a quarter of a bottle with a grimace. Whatever the SEP had pumped him and Jack full of to make them resistant to alcohol (or more efficient at breaking it down), it didn’t do anything to the taste and this particular brew was rather foul.

On the holo-screen in front of him, the cursor blinked. He added another line.

  1. Find out how to tell Jack



He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat and moved it to the very bottom of the document so he could put off seeing it for a while.

_Now add to your list_ , Jack had told him. _What do you need to do to accomplish each goal?_

Gabriel took another swig of the tequila and leaned back in his chair. It was beginning to hit him now, just a minor buzz like he had downed a bottle of beer, but he welcomed the loose feeling he got, however fleeting it was.

Thumping the bottle heavily on his desk, Gabriel steepled his fingers on his stomach and thought.

Hanahaki, according to Dr. O’Deorain’s research, was primarily psychosomatic – meaning that even though true physical pain and symptoms occur, it is not necessarily done by any outside means, nor is it necessarily caused by a direct action. He knew that it fell under the “mysteries of the human body” category when it came to diseases, and as far as anyone had ever seen it wasn’t viral or bacterial and couldn’t be spread from person to person in the standard way that illnesses were passed.

Jesse’s Hanahaki had manifested as Japanese cherry blossoms – fitting for the man he loved. He remembered that Krishnasami’s were sunflowers – he remembered holding her hand while waiting for the anesthesia to kick in. She had tried to be brave until the last when he felt her hand shake and saw the tears welling up in her eyes. Her muscles had been relaxed enough that she wouldn’t cough and made her tongue and lips loose as she spoke, a little slurred. He kept the doctors and nurses outside until she was fully under to give her that last little bit of dignity that she could feel.

Looking down at the book on his desk, Gabriel considered the petals hidden inside. He had an entire photo album of pictures of flowers, one for each operative of his that had to go under the knife for such a tragic story of unrequited love. It was perhaps grotesque and morbid and before each procedure he asked permission – of course he did – but he wanted some memory of the person they used to be and the love that had been ripped away.

They were _his people_ , after all.

They risked their lives and lost their limbs on his word; pulled triggers and slit throats at a snap of his fingers. And now...how could he keep their trust if he was Cut?

Shaking his head, he took another long drink straight from the bottle. He flipped through the album and thought about cornflowers.


	2. Only So an Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things must come to an end.

There was no hiding from his team what he had done. It was as obvious to them as if he had hung a sign over his head, as if he walked down the halls screaming I AM EMPTY. But they said nothing because they knew better and even though it was a struggle to cling to the memory of  _ feeling _ , he still cared for his operatives.

Shimada was blithely oblivious but McCree could see it a mile away. “How you feelin’, boss?” he asked.

“I’m not feeling much of anything these days,” Gabriel replied. He steepled his fingers in front of him. “And with  _ this _ ,” here he gestured to his chest in a cross, mimicking the thick scars that were still shiny and pink beneath his clothes, mimicking the sign of the cross that he only did when making prayers on special occasions. (It was probably an affront to God, much like his entire life was.) “Makes me see things differently. Give me a status report on your hunting trip.”

While Shimada sat and stared in uncomfortable silence, McCree reported. He was nearly done when Shimada blurted, “I thought you wouldn’t.”

Gabriel glanced at him. “I am not above standard operating procedures,” he said dryly.

“Why didn’t you confess?” Shimada pressed, his brows pinched above his mask. There was something open and vulnerable in those glowing red eyes that Gabriel couldn’t care enough to identify at the moment.

Next to him, McCree snorted. “That’s a personal question,” he told his partner. “You don’t just go around askin’ people that.”

“It’s not like Empty people have feelings anymore,” Shimada said mulishly. “They chose to cut it out.”

McCree stood in a single explosive motion, making Shimada jump. “Ain’t always about  _ your _ feelings,” McCree said through gritted teeth. “Commander?” Gabriel nodded his permission and they both watched the gunslinger leave.

Sighing, Shimada stood as well. “Fine,” he snapped. “I want to be transferred; I cannot trust a commander that can’t care.”

“Dismissed,” Gabriel told him. “Submit the paperwork and we’ll consider it.”

Sneering at him, Shimada left, the door nearly closing on the tip of his  _ ōdachi _ . Gabriel leaned back in his chair, drumming the tips of his fingers on his desk as he thought. On one hand, Shimada was going to be a problem – so would McCree if the cyborg’s attitude kept up.

On another, there were other issues to consider, like the intel they brought in. It confirmed the uncomfortable thoughts he’d been having since he got the Cut and he didn’t like it at all.

Short-term, dealing with Shimada and McCree were high up there in terms of priority; long-term, he’d need to deal with the cracks in Blackwatch’s armor that were being exploited. He looked down on his desk at the picture of Jack leaning against one of the temporary buildings at Gibraltar.

Jack was going to be another problem and Gabriel rode the swoop in his gut like the first few seconds of freefall while he waited for the warm flutter of his heart that would never come again. If he could feel, he would be drowning in guilt right about now.

Pulling out his comm, he felt nothing when he saw that he had no messages from Jack. Did he know? Did someone tell him? Or was Gabriel looking too far into it?

Shaking his head, he brought up Dr. O’Deorain’s contact information and scheduled a meeting with her.

“It doesn’t surprise me that you’re… _ feeling _ rather odd,” she said during their scheduled meeting time. “You  _ have _ a lot of chemicals and nanites lurking around in your physiology. It wouldn’t surprise me that the phenomena that causes Hanahaki is affected.”

Gabriel grunted and held up his hands. The tips of his fingers were black, fading off into wisps of smoke. “This has been happening more often,” he said.

“That’s not good,” Moira told him unhelpfully. Her odd eyes seemed to cross as she focused on them, leaning close. “To what extent?”

“It’s hard to describe,” Gabriel said slowly.

Moira’s eyes flicked up to his face. “Try, please.”

Gabriel grunted and thought. “Sometimes I will wait to feel something,” he said slowly. “Whenever…” his eyes flicked cautiously around the room.

“It’s clean,” Moira assured him. “My machinery would pick up anything with a bug in here. But keep your voice down since someone would be able to hear you through the door.”

When he raised a brow at her, she gave him a knife-edged smirk. “Whenever I…almost feel, whenever I stop and  _ expect _ an emotion, it feels like something in me is breaking.” The wisps of his fingers slowly solidified again, coalescing into whole fingers still rough with scars and callouses that were somehow still there.

Moira shook her head, clicking her tongue in what almost sounded like disapproval or disappointment. “This is new territory – your… _ abilities _ are already unique and even more is your involvement with the SEP. Empty people do experience what they describe as a kind of weightlessness in the early days of their Cut when the brain attempts to feel emotion – a kind of phantom pain if you will, not unlike those with prosthetic limbs. In time this fades but in direct combination with your…uniqueness?” she shook her head ruefully. “I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you. We can only monitor it closely.”

“Not a good answer,” Gabriel agreed. “But for now the changes are minor and are currently only on my extremities – that I am aware of.”

Leaning back, Moira took a few quick notes on an old-fashioned leather-bound paper book. Seeing his look, she gave a poisonous smile. “Electronics can be hacked; paper cannot, even if it is a bit more difficult to carry around.” She scribbled something down in a quick cypher; if he was a betting man, he’d bet it was in another language as well, perhaps even Gaelic. “Do you experience a sensation when it occurs?”

“As much as I  _ can _ feel,” Gabriel replied.

Moira scribbled something down. “Can you describe the sensation? Did it change after the Cut?”

He considered that for a moment and Moira let him, kicking her rolling chair toward the corner that held her rabbits and she cooed at them until Gabriel spoke again. “Before…I could almost feel myself breaking apart bit by bit but it didn’t hurt. Kind of like feeling sand roll off my skin. Now…I just feel cold.”

“In what capacity?” Moira asked as her pen scratched distractingly in her notebook.

Gabriel looked down at his hands. If he could feel, he’d feel afraid. Wordlessly they both watched his fingertips begin to dissolve into smoke like the sands of an hourglass escaping from him. “Like I’m dying and I can feel my life slipping away from me.”

* * *

 

The mission and deployment took much longer than anyone had anticipated. It was sometime after midnight when they returned to Zurich and too tired to deal with bureaucracy – and that was saying a lot as a newly Emptied soldier – Gabriel kept the debrief short and dismissed everyone to their beds. They had done good work and most of them had come back in one piece.

Krishnasami was likely due for a medal (or at least as much of a medal as Blackwatch got) for her bravery during the fight; the Engineering team was working on a new prosthetic for her already.

“I didn’t know Empty soldiers could  _ trudge _ ,” he muttered to McCree, the only other operative in the debriefing room.

McCree snorted. His opinion of Gabriel and the operation hadn’t lifted from its foul slump, but unlike Shimada he didn’t make snide quips. “You’ll learn,” he said gruffly and palmed the lock closed, engaging the silencing technology as well. It made Gabriel’s brows rise.

“Shouldn’t  _ I _ be saying something like that?” he said. He wished he could joke again, wished he could go back a year ago when both of them could smile and  _ mean it _ ; wished he could ruffle McCree’s shaggy hair and tease him about the scrawny twig of a creature he had been.

His protégé ignored that. “It means you’re tired – you might not  _ feel _ it, but your body is still capable of giving out on you,” McCree told him. “You’ve figured out that you don’t feel  _ hunger _ , but now you need to learn that you don’t feel  _ exhaustion _ .”

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you lock the door to lecture me?” he asked. “It’s a bit late for that.”

McCree’s blank face was almost frightening if Gabriel could still feel such a thing. He felt a wisp of smoke release from his leg and was glad that the desk blocked it from McCree’s view. (It probably didn’t – McCree was a damned good deadeye after all – but neither of them mentioned it.)

“I know that look,” Gabriel said when McCree didn’t respond further. “You want out.”

“Something ain’t right,” McCree said, ducking his head. It was more of a braced position than one of concession or deference. His hat and downturned face cast his lips in shadow.

Gabriel considered it. “We both know that,” he said very quietly. From the way McCree’s eyes flicked, he understood the unspoken message Gabriel was giving him:  _ there are eyes and ears everywhere _ . “Are you getting cold feet on me, McCree? Thinking of going back to jail?”

“Ain’t never been,” McCree hissed. “Why, you thinkin’ of sendin’ me back?”

They faced each other down like that and Gabriel gestured sharply with one hand; with the other he made a sign on the table. “Get out of my sight,” Gabriel snapped. “You don’t know what’s at stake here.”

McCree gave him a cold look that Gabriel couldn’t recognize at first. Only later did he realize that it was a silent rebuke. “You sound just like Big Blue,” he said quietly and stalked out.

For a long moment, Gabriel hung his head as he thought of McCree’s parting words. Scrubbing a hand over his face in a mockery of his frustration, he hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder and trudged out into the hall.

A shower in one of the empty locker rooms was his first stop as he put off returning to his room as long as possible. What would Jack think? How would he tell him?

How  _ could _ you tell someone such a thing without it becoming an accusation? An admission of selfishness?  _ I loved you but you didn’t love me back; I cut out my feelings rather than die for you _ .

In the distance he could hear the door to the locker rooms creak open and the sound of rustling. Gabriel turned away, facing his back to Jack as his bare feet slapped against the floor. “Hey soldier,” Jack said, his voice rough with sleep. He hissed sharply as he took a step forward. “Ah! Cold!”

Was it? Gabriel looked down at the dial and saw that it was and that gooseflesh was prickling along his arms. How odd; he couldn’t feel it. Had he been showering like this the whole time since the Cut? He twisted the knob to hot and sighed. Muscles that he didn’t know had been tight and shivering with the cold loosened and the gooseflesh smoothed away.

Steam filled the empty showers as a body pressed against his back. “Welcome home,” Jack said, pressing his lips to the back of Gabriel’s shoulders. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but they felt rougher. “I missed you.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to respond and hesitated. What would Jack hear? Would he just chalk it up to jetlag? He sighed and tangled his fingers with Jack’s where they were slowly creeping around his hips. The contrast between their skin – cream-toned that was turning red beneath the hot water against mahogany and chocolate – made Gabriel wish he could smile even a little bit.

He  _ wanted _ and that surprised him the first time he felt it. It wasn’t really an emotion, he supposed, but  _ want _ was something he could feel and he did. He could  _ want _ his operatives to be safe and come back alive and well, even the Blues that tagged along. He could  _ want _ McCree and Shimada and O’Deorain and Krishnasami and Hill and all of his operatives to be happy.

Late at night he could  _ want _ to feel the warmth of Jack’s arms around him and the press of his lips and the feeling of his fingers running through his hair while they relaxed together.

“I bet you’re tired,” Jack muttered, pressing his face against Gabriel’s spine. “How was the mission?” when he didn’t respond, Jack squeezed his fingers. “Not well, huh?” he sighed. “Come on, let me clean you up.” 

Gently, Gabriel lifted their tangled fingers and pressed a kiss to Jack’s knuckles. He said nothing, his eyes on the contrast of their skin and the way that water sluiced off their scarred knuckles.

“It must be bad then,” Jack said, an odd note in his voice that made Gabriel pause. “You’re so quiet…”

His other hand slid upwards, tracing the ridges of his abs and Gabriel caught that hand too, pressing it over his diaphragm below the scars as he weighed his options. On one hand, Jack deserved to know and Gabriel didn’t know how to tell him; on the other hand, Gabriel wanted so badly to pretend that the crossed scar on his chest was just a bad dream and that he could turn around and kiss Jack warmly and tug him under the water and smile and let the water wash away the weight and sweat of his mission and travel.

But it was best to get done right away, no matter Gabriel’s thoughts on the matter. If he could feel, he would be terrified; he’d feel guiltier than he could ever remember feeling, like he had just committed the worst kind of betrayal because in a way he had.

Still saying nothing, Gabriel pressed another kiss to their tangled hands and let the other one go; let Jack’s rough fingers climb up his chest and feel the edges of the scar.

Behind him, Jack sucked in a breath. “Oh, Gabe,” he breathed and now his hand shook a little. “What happened?” Jack’s fingers were softer than the beat of the water, exploring as if afraid that even that light touch would hurt Gabriel. Perhaps it could but  _ pain _ wasn’t something that Gabriel could feel anymore. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” Gabriel said roughly, tipping his head down to look at the exploration of Jack’s hand. It traced only the lowest edge of the scar, just beneath the curve of his pectorals, as if afraid to search out the rest of it. The water trailed hot fingers through his hair and sluiced down his face. If he could feel pain, his eyes would sting with the heat; now it was just an annoyance that made his eyes blur.

He tipped his head back and out of the shower as Jack’s fingers eventually traced upward, following the thick path of the scar. “It must have been recent,” Jack whispered between his shoulder blades. “How long?”

Gabriel stared at the darkened ceiling, unable even to feel guilt or nervousness as Jack’s fingers neared the cross that would give away the true nature of his scar. “Two weeks,” he said just as roughly as before and for a brief moment Gabriel wondered why; he figured that he may have been yelling to be heard over the roaring engines as Noroski brought them in for landing and refueling. At first the technician had claimed that they didn’t have clearance but a good roar from Gabriel had solved that.

Bare centimeters away from the cross – and Gabriel looked down again to watch – Jack froze. “Weeks?” he asked, his voice almost lost in the slap of water on the tile. “It must have been bad if…”

Jack froze, stiffened behind Gabriel when he reached the second cut. The Sign of Cain, some called it, though Cain far predated the cross that hung Jesus. Growing up, Gabriel had known people with the Devil’s Cross because only sinners  _ like that _ would reject love enough to remove their heart.

(The bitter truth that most of the sinners that had cut their hearts out had been gay and that their families had done so against their will more often than not had not been lost on him even as a young child. Perhaps his mother knew because he remembered her shaking hands as they combed his hair.  _ Guard your heart _ , mijo, she’d tell him and he had obeyed until Jack Morrison.)

Jack pulled away slowly and Gabriel let him. “Gabe,” he said softly. “Turn around.”

He turned his head first, looking at Jack over his shoulder. He wasn’t scared – he couldn’t feel that emotion – but he was…it was like standing at the end of a ramp about to do a HALO jump: there wasn’t quite the sense of  _ fear _ but an awareness of what was about to happen. Jack looked scared and it almost felt as if his heart skipped a beat – that sensation of weightlessness during a particularly strong emotion-that-would-be that heralded wisps of smoke.

Guilt, he decided as he searched Jack’s face. He’d feel guilt.

He turned completely, losing more wisps of smoke from his extremities as he did. Jack made a choked sound, his eyes coming to rest on the telltale scar across his chest. He swallowed hard around a lump in his throat and bared his teeth in a grimace when he finally met Gabriel’s eyes. “I should have known,” he said and stormed out.

Gabriel turned off the shower and walked out into the changing area. Jack hadn’t bothered even to attempt to dry himself and was struggling to pull his clothes back on. Wordlessly Gabriel handed him a towel or tried to; Jack slapped it away from him with a snarl.

“Did you think of  _ anyone? _ ” he snapped. The boxers he pulled on stuck high on one hip almost comically…if Gabriel could still feel amused. “Anyone but yourself?”

“Of course,” Gabriel said slowly. He tried to offer the towel to Jack again but it was once more slapped out of his hands.

Jack backed up a step like a cornered animal and Gabriel stopped trying to advance on him. He  _ wanted _ to hold him in his arms again or be held, but like this Gabriel was more likely to be hurt with things he couldn’t feel and would probably upset Jack even more. “Who was it?” Jack hissed, his voice rough and grating.

“You, of course,” Gabriel replied, cocking his head to the side. A silly question; who else  _ would _ it be?

He couldn’t be sure why exactly, but that seemed to upset Jack even more. What had he said wrong? Jack snatched up the towel from the ground and dried off enough to yank his clothes on. Water still clung to his cornsilk hair like little jewels that made Gabriel think of snow and ice.

“Get out of my sight,” Jack snapped, throwing his coat over his arm and stomping away.

Gabriel was left alone with his thoughts and the void in his chest where his heart used to be.

* * *

 

Blackwatch ate together most days, usually during the scheduled times that the Empty soldiers did. Gabriel used to eat meals with them as often as he could but it was by an unspoken rule that most didn’t see very much of him or Morrison the first day one of them got back from an extended mission.

“You really stepped in it now, huh, Commander?” Belson asked sympathetically. “Got kicked out of lunch with Big Blue?”

Kenish shrugged. While technically in Blackwatch, he often served as a pilot with Overwatch and would often stay on that side of the base to take care of his plane. “He was in a foul mood today,” he said. “Normally he sweetens up a bit.”

“It’s none of our concern,” McElree scolded.

“It is if he almost tried to make  _ me _ do laps!” Kenish protested jokingly.

Everyone at the table turned expectantly toward Gabriel who continued to mechanically eat his meal. “We had a disagreement about standard operating procedure,” he said in his tellingly flat voice and the silence at the table turned awkward. It was funny (if he could feel such things) that he could recognize that while not feeling it. “He was opposed to me returning to our room.”

“Oh,” Belson said softly.

Krishnasami, who had escaped Medical and sat among them with their larger bodies to hide her, huffed. She wobbled a little, her body still a bit off-kilter from her missing arm and the drugs still coursing through her as a follow-up to Moira’s treatment. “If he was so opposed to it, he should have said something sooner,” she said.

“They send the Cut ones to Blackwatch, who don’t exist,” Kenish pointed out tiredly. “But you can bet that  _ they _ get the choice.”

“You didn’t sign up for Blackwatch ‘cos you had a choice,” McCree pointed out as he placed his tray down with a loud metal  _ clack _ .

Kenish snorted and opened his mouth to retort but swallowed whatever he had been about to say when Shimada settled on Gabriel’s other side as tense as a bird about to spring into flight. The rest of the meal was spent in awkward silence.

“I do not agree,” Shimada said very quietly, having walked with Gabriel to return Krishnasami to Medical and then followed him back to his office. “But that does not give anyone the right to stare.” Gabriel nodded once in thanks and they let the door close between them.

“Your office is bugged,” Moira said from the corner and Gabriel noted privately to himself that despite being unable to feel  _ fear _ , he could still jump as he was startled – perhaps it was simply a natural reaction of the body, since he still felt tingly and light-headed from the rush of adrenaline. She smiled that dangerous smile of hers and held up something in her long-fingered hand. “Well… _ was _ .” The smile slipped from her face. “We need to talk.”

* * *

 

“Will you speak with me?” Gabriel asked.

Strike Commander Morrison stopped, his shoulders tense. “Why?” he growled in a rough voice. “Is there something you need?”

“You,” Gabriel said honestly.

Without turning, Morrison shook his head. “You had your chance,” he growled. “But you  _ cut your heart out _ .”

“It was SOP,” Gabriel said evenly. “If I had not, it would have killed me.”

“So you got the Coward’s Cut,” Morrison hissed, his shoulders tense. “So you took the easy way out. And what of me?”

If he could still feel such emotion, Gabriel was sure he would be angry. Wisps of smoke fell from his fingers, gathered at the edges of his body like steam; he would feel pain from that, a stinging like the bite of a hundred ants as he broke apart and formed again. As it was, he only felt that peculiar sensation like the first few seconds of freefall.

But he couldn’t so he said in a low, even voice he said, “You say that like this was a choice I  _ wanted _ to make.”

“So now I’m stuck loving someone that can’t love me back,” Morrison hissed, his head drooping. “Because you desired power.”

A surge of not-anger swept through him, allowing him to dart in a noxious cloud of smoke around to stand in front of Morrison who jumped in surprise. “You say that I chose this for power,” he said in his dead voice as he forced his body back into its proper shape. “But I would give that power up to love you again.”

Morrison’s eyes softened and his shoulders eased until he became Jack again. “Gabe,” he said softly. “Then why? Why would you when you had…when you had other options?” A look of hurt and terror flashed across his face and Gabriel reached out automatically, cupping Jack’s jaw in his hands that looked more like the claws of some Eldritch beast.

“It was you,” Gabriel confirmed quietly. He lowered his voice. “And I was sick before I left. We need to talk, Jackie, but not here; not where people can hear us.”

Jack shook his head. “I can’t,” he said and backed away. He looked at Gabriel –  _ really _ looked at him, taking in the too many mouths with too many teeth, the red eyes with black sclera, the way that his form seemed to blur from the waist down, and shook his head. “I can’t,” he repeated and walked out of the room, giving the rest of Gabriel’s cloud-like body a wide berth. “And don’t ask me to.”

“Things fall apart, boss,” McCree said. He and Genji had been standing on the side, mostly unnoticed.

The cyborg watched Gabriel with his glowing red eyes, his brow creased in a thoughtful frown. Once upon a time he had been opposed to Gabriel’s Cut, believing that as an Empty soldier, he couldn’t be trusted to lead if he couldn’t care for his team; he had been nervous, outright upset at Gabriel’s abilities, in a way that may have hinted at jealousy. Most of all, Genji hated when he Shadow Walked – when he moved like a shadow and returned to a physical form that was more monster than man.

That all changed after Venice – they had  _ all _ changed.

“You wanted to talk?” Genji asked.

Gabriel nodded and forced his body back into proper shape: two legs, two arms, the normal amount of mouths and eyes; it would be some time before his eyes faded and the skin around them returned to their proper shade, but that was better. “Not here,” he said.

In the garden where Gabriel deemed it safe, among the hearts of countless operatives that had gotten the Cut, he sent them on a hunt. He didn’t tell them his secret hope that the hunt would prove fruitless but would keep them away from the gathering storm.

Genji seemed oblivious, but all of the Empty ones somehow seemed to sense it; as if without their hearts they had been stripped away to animal instinct and smelling the coming rain and thunder, prepared to go to ground.

If Gabriel could feel relief, he would; if he could, he would take heart knowing that McCree –  _ Jesse _ – and Genji, who he once thought of as sons when he could feel such love and affection, were safe and away. The goose chase he sent them on wasn’t as wild as it seemed and he made sure that they were safe, were far enough away from the fallout.

They would be safe.

But there was one more person that he needed to be sure was safe, needed to get away from the rot he could almost smell as he walked through Watchpoint: Geneva’s halls.

It was too little too late and he screamed despite his Emptiness when fire scrubbed clean the halls and everything came tumbling down around him. 

* * *

Moira nudged him. “Come on Gabriel,” she said. “Get up.”

“No,” Gabriel groaned. His entire body felt heavy as if weighed down; it was as tired as he could feel anymore and as much as it could, it “hurt” to move.

The doctor sighed above him and the prickling sensation of her healing stream rippled over him. “Get up,” she repeated, something like fondness in her raspy voice. “There is no rest for the weary. Not in this world.” She coughed and nudged him with the point of her shoe. “Come on,” she said a little sterner.

Very slowly Gabriel pulled himself together, letting the fractured pieces of his body climb over each other to form two legs, a torso, two arms, and a head. A hundred teeth gnashed, dozens of eyes blinked, and he sighed.

Four sets of eyes watched Moira; the rest surveyed the wreckage of the base. They silently took in arches of exposed rebar like the shattered bones of a giant and unclimbable mountains of rubble; of multicolored flames and towering, choking columns of black smoke. All around them the oppressive heat pushed, pressing on lungs and skin.

Moira stood in her battle gear, lit from behind by the hellish blazes as she toyed with a golden orb, and watched him. Four sets of eyes blinked at her and she blinked back with that odd little smile on her face. “Well?” she asked.

A dozen eyes blinked and a hundred teeth gnashed and the man that used to be Gabriel Reyes pulled himself together into something that looked more human. He stared at the destruction around him and with two eyes stared at the one who had pulled the strings to unravel the knot.

Moira must have seen something in him because she gave a poisonous smile and let the golden orb disappear from her palm. “Come along then,” she said as she turned. “Don’t tarry.”

Looking around, the man that had once been Gabriel Reyes halfheartedly looked for any sign of Jack Morrison, the man he had so fatally loved and had continued to love even after he could no longer feel it. Perhaps it was for the best that he saw no sign of him, living or dead.

He looked up. The sky was lit by flames and darkened by thick smoke as black as the edges of the Grim Reaper’s robes.

On top of a small pile of rubble that oozed thick ichor, black as tar in the devastation, Moira waited. Nodding once, the man that had once been Gabriel Reyes followed her into the shadows and emerged even more of a monster than he had ever been any other time he had Walked the Shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to [Lyall_Lupa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyall_Lupa/pseuds/Lyall_Lupa) for listening to me whine.
> 
> Please feel free to come and yell at me on tumblr at [classywastelandbread](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> ~DC

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to [Lyall_Lupa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyall_Lupa/pseuds/Lyall_Lupa) who put up with my whining as I wrote and edited this mess. 
> 
> I hope you guys liked it. If you want to, please feel free to come and yell at me on my tumblr, [classywastelandbread](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com).
> 
> ~DC


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